Jamal Raees is a seasoned crypto payments strategist with nearly a decade of experience bringing blockchain technology into mainstream finance. He currently leads payments at Solana Foundation, where he drives product strategy and partnerships for financial services adoption.

Jamal began his career at BitPay, where he launched the first Visa and MasterCard crypto debit card programs, secured early regulatory licenses, and enabled Fortune 500 companies like AT&T and Microsoft to adopt cryptocurrency. He later managed financial partnerships while contributing to early crypto initiatives at Square, and went on to serve as Head of Business at Wyre, an early infrastructure provider powering MetaMask, GameStop, and others. He then was the first business hire at Bridge, the stablecoin startup acquired by Stripe for $1.1B, helping to build out their early strategy and relationships. After Bridge, Jamal was the Head of Strategy at Polygon, where he led their most recent push into payments.